Introduction Episode

This is an introductory preview to the podcast.

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Transcript

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Ideas that have shaped human history as expressed in poetry, speeches, myth, and documents. A podcast by Alan Anforth.

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Listeners, this is Alan Anforth broadcasting from my backyard in Canberra, Australia. This program is my personal effort to address ideas that have shaped human history as expressed in poetry, speeches, myths and documents. The program will be posted weekly or more frequently, depending on their content and the work involved. Mostly, but not always, the topics deal with what some people might describe as serious or heavy issues, which some might find depressing, unduly taxing on their concentration, or offensive to their present world views. Such people are probably better to give this program a miss. The program necessarily addresses existential political, historical, philosophical, sociological and scientific issues of my choosing and no doubt loaded with my personal biases. The purpose of this is to encourage or facilitate people to think about the issues presented for which I offer no apology for those who are offended. Some programs are directed at considering the human state from a physiological, psychological and ethical perspective. I unequivocally declare that I have a low and sceptical view of human nature and its future. Some programs address the sociological phenomenon of social tribalism, its role in the Darwinian evolutionary process and the ubiquitous violence that is manifested throughout human history. The program requires no subscription. It is free for streaming for anyone to download hard copies of the program. There may be some small differences between the audio content and the hard copy content due to the space constraints and human endurance that more affect the former than the latter. No copyright is asserted. Listeners are welcome to post responses, but I will not respond to those which are not constructive in nature. I make the following preliminary observations about the form of the program. Firstly, historically there was not much difference between literature expressed in poetry, speeches, myths and documents. The latter category includes ballads, plays and media productions. They were just forms of oral communications best suited to the society at the time and the intended audience. Secondly, in times where the audience were largely illiterate, myths and poetry were an easier form of communication for oral transmission between generations. Thirdly, the communications had to accord with the state of scientific knowledge and the social structures of the society of the day. Fourthly, prior to the printing press in the mid fifteenth century, books or parchments were expensive, and only a few within society were sufficiently literate to write them and to own them. Fifthly, over time, words, tropes, illusions, metaphors, etc change meaning to the point where they may be meaningless to later generations, even more so where the literature in question is both historical and translated from a foreign language or culture. For this reason at some points in the audio version I've either substituted a more relevant rendering of the term used or deleted them entirely. Some of the literature, poems, speeches, myths and documents are also very long, which makes the oral presentation difficult and causes errors. It can also tax the concentration and interest of readers and listeners. For that reason I've sometimes read only part of the relevant literature and summarized the content of the exercise in the oral version. I hope you find the program something different and interesting and that you'll tune in for future programmes.